Category Archives: work

I’m here, I’m queer and everyone is used to it

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I neither hide nor trumpet that my partner is a woman.  I refer to POB (partner of blogger) and our son when appropriate in a professional setting, just as a straight person should only refer to family as appropriate. 

I assume that, in my background checks and google searches, my sexual orientation comes up.  But it is not — nor should it be — something that anyone would raise as a question in interviews.  As you all know, I recently changed jobs. 

Today, POB and our son came to see my new office and met some of my new colleagues and support staff.  I introduced them as, “this is my partner [POB] and our son [SOPOBAB].”

Everything went smoothly — as it should — but I am old enough to remember coming out in the workplace and being afraid of losing my job or my standing as a promising young associate.  Those days are not so long ago.  I decided to step out of the closet for good when I switched law firms 13 years ago. It has probably been in the last five years that my sexual orientation hasn’t been a source of intrigue for my colleagues.

Times are a-changing. And, I am grateful.

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Aging.

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Ok, so a friend told me, in a meaningful and affirmative way, that my new picture on my new company’s website is not horrible.  She said, “it looks like you.”  Excuse me while I have a body lift. Don’t think that I wasn’t being self-affirming in that statement.  My first thought was: excuse me while I put my head in the oven.

After 45 years, I have got to come to terms with what I look like.  I have to stop hoping that a glamorous woman is going to stare back at me in the mirror one morning.  Years ago, I had an apartment mate who believed she would wake up one morning transformed into a six-foot tall blonde. Ok, the blonde part could be done. But growing 12 inches when you are 22? Nah. This is a long winded way (who, me?) of saying, I used to laugh about that until I realized that I have the same insane delusions.

Too things about aging really annoy me:

(1) puffy eyes. I have those now from doing the client/prospective client blitz now that I changed jobs.  And I spent the last two days at a conference schmoozing people I never met before.

(2) sagging neck skin. If only my neck skin wasn’t starting to do the chicken dance.

One part is getting easier with age. People (mis)take my gray hair for experience and knowledge. Would I be less smart if I got my hair colored?

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My inner diva

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I had to have a close-up taken for my new firm’s website.  Last time my picture was taken for a firm website, I had no wrinkles or gray hairs.  What a difference 3.5 years makes.  Now, laugh lines and a shock of gray.  Last time, the pictures were taken by a professional photographer.  This time, by someone in the mail room.

Nevertheless, the difference in photographs was shocking (to me).  And the transition from the color picture to black and white didn’t do anything to help.  In a culture where young and cute mean success, this was my very own personal reality check and public relations disaster.  I can’t turn back time and pretend I am young and cute, but I can have a passable picture that doesn’t scream old and wrinkled.

At my insistence (and that of my assistant, G-d bless her), the guys in the mailroom tried to enhance the picture as much as possible, at least to get rid of that strange patina that affected part of my face as if a skin disease. But, I just have to get used to the fact that I am older and it shows.  I guess I will market that as “experience” and “judgment”.

I saw a lapel button once that said, “Aging to Perfection”.  That picture — which probably captures how I really appear — is more like “Aging Out to Pasture”.

And, yes, I had a diva moment.  And it isn’t like I have a right to be.  Nevertheless, let this be a warning to all:  Beware an aging woman and her photo.

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First Impressions

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My assistant and I have worked together for ten years.  We would take bullets for each other.  So, when I changed jobs, so did she.

She is young and pushy and doesn’t smile naturally.  And she has no boundaries when it comes to her opinions on my life and the world in general.  Remember she is barely 30, and I am older than 45.  So no shrinking violet.

And still she wonders why one person got testy when she asked about our building IDs for our new firm.  The IDs were supposed to be ready at 1pm.  I asked her how many times she asked.  She said “five”.  It was only 4pm. I asked her, in a Jon Stewart voice, “Really? You’re not sure why she’s angry with you? Really?”

The scary part is that she is mellowing with age.  G-d help me.

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